The GRS Garden Project: September Update

September generally brings the largest harvests for our garden. That was true again this year, but not by as much as we hoped. The bad weather at the beginning of the season means that things just aren’t ripe yet. Kris has been encouraging her tomatoes for weeks. I’m dying for the grapes to be ready. (They’re almost there!)

Kris gives orders to her garden elves. Photo by Lisa.

We did harvest a lot last month, the bulk of which was tomatoes and tree fruit. We had so many tomatoes, in fact, that Kris was able to enlist the help of five-year-olds Albert and Annika to help harvest. They did an amazing job picking cherry tomatoes.

Like investing in fruit
September’s nice because there’s almost no garden maintenance. All we have to do is stroll out to pick the food we want. During the middle of the month, Kris and I had a mild misunderstanding. I thought she told me to go pick all of the apples from our trees, but she really told me to pick a few for some jam. I came back into the house with 19 pounds of apples, which was far more than she needed. We made an spontaneous batch of applesauce.

Actually, Kris did a lot of canning this month: marinara sauce, applesauce, salsa, pickled plums, and more. As usual, we supplemented our own harvest with free food from friends and neighbors (25 pound of pears here, 15 pounds of plums there), as well as things like onions and garlic from the produce stand.

Now, as the rains begin and the harvest draws to a close, our pantry and freezer are both packed full. When we make a blackberry cobbler in February, take pickled “dilly beans” to a potluck or pop open a jar of spicy salsa on a chilly afternoon, we’ll be extending the benefits of our garden year-round. Our home-canned goods will help defray food costs over the next eight months until we can expect another strawberry crop to kick off 2009′s garden bounty.

The fruits of our labor
Our total harvest in September yielded $152.75 in produce, largely from tomatoes. Here’s the complete tally for this month’s garden production.

Note: For the purposes of this project, we’re using “best match” pricing. Based on GRS reader suggestions, we’re obtaining typical pricing from our local farmers market. In some cases, we use pricing from a local organic produce stand. In all cases, we’re trying to be fair, but this is more art than science.

A little bit of whining
I’ll be honest. I’m a little disappointed. Once it became clear that this garden was going to “make money”, I wanted it to kick ass. It hasn’t done that. Don’t get me wrong — we love having fresh produce outside our front door, and we enjoy the work with the plants, but I was hoping for more.

I think there are a few ways we can improve.

For one, we can focus on plants that are more productive in our climate. (Look for a complete exploration of this topic in December or January.)

For another, we can begin refining our gardening methods to emphasize frugality. As I noted at the start, we haven’t altered any of our normal habits for this project. In the future, it might be worth doing so.

Finally, we can have better weather. Oregon’s Willamette Valley had a short summer this year. The rainy grey skies lingered an extra month, and now they seem to have arrived two weeks early. That loss of six weeks (and especially those first four weeks) has a huge impact. That means our tomato harvest is stunted, and that we only had four ears of corn come to maturity.

This year, we initially made a large financial outlay for two types of organic pest traps for the apple trees. They proved successful; our apples were practically worm-free! As the two trees mature and bear larger crops, the number and value of the apples will increase as the cost of the traps will drop (because some parts are reusable from year-to-year).

I almost want to repeat this entire project next year to see if we can spend less and harvest more! (Maybe we’ll do it behind the scenes, providing totals at the end of the summer.)

Summary
We spent nothing on the garden this month, and very little time. It doesn’t take long to harvest 19 pounds of apples or five pounds of tomatoes. September is the closest our garden will ever come to “pure profit”.

There is still food left to harvest. Though the rains have set in, we may have more tomatoes. (There are plenty on the plants, but the cool weather is likely to prevent them from ripening.) There are potatoes left to dig, and the acorn squash is ready to pick and dry for winter storage (to be tallied in October).

Most importantly, we have grapes to pick. We only have 20 feet of young grape vines, so we won’t have many from our yard. But the neighbor has vast swaths of Concords growing wild. I wanted to pick them last weekend, but he insisted they were two weeks away. I plan to pick them next Saturday. I just hope these rains don’t ruin the flavor. (Will rain do that to grapes?) There are few things I love more than fresh Concord grapes. (Especially fresh free Concord grapes.) They make amazing grape juice and Kris wants to put up some grape jelly.

Kris has made notes on her garden plan to help her organize her seed order for next year. Only a few short months until the seed catalogs arrive! And she has begun an experiment to grow a few herbs indoors this winter. Stay tuned on whether that is worthwhile.

Final word
Just to be clear on the purpose of this project: This isn’t a formal experiment. Kris and I are long-time hobby gardeners, and we have set ways that we do things. This year, we are not trying to do anything different than we have for more than a decade. We’re not trying to be 100% organic (though we are mostly organic through our normal practices).

Nor are we trying to be 100% frugal. Instead, we’re trying to see just what our garden costs and produces based on our normal habits. We hope the results of this experiment will help us find new ways to economize and to improve our crops.

I was wondering if you could suggest a book on gardening or direct me to an article of yours that might point me in the right direction. I’m a complete novice to gardening, don’t understand composting and how to use it, don’t understand the variations on fertilizers (ratios of chemicals, etc), how much planting would yield a good sized harvest (i.e. more food than for just snacking or a small salad) and have no idea what needs how much sun or would grow in the shade. I’d like to start a small garden for next year, but don’t know where to start. Our yard has really shady areas and sunny areas, so I have no idea how to plan for that. I’d also like to learn tricks of the trade, if there’s such a thing, like cutting a potato and putting it in the ground to grow more (that’s probably common knowledge to most people, but not me!). I also need to learn frequency of watering, keeping birds and bugs away and anything else that’ll help me have a successful garden. Thanks!

I also am a complete novice, but it appears that the Mittleider method may be even better than SFG. I am eager to try it next year and blog my results. Look just two posts above on the links about Mittleider.

If you’re not sure, try both side-by-side and see which gets better results.

Maha, the most important thing for us to know is where you live. That answer changes all the others. It changes how composting is done and how it is applied. It changes what you can plant … or not. It changes the watering frequency and the sort of structures (or not) that might be advisable for your particular garden.

Also, what you might enjoy the taste of may vary quite a bit from what we enjoy. Beans and tomatoes will grow almost anywhere and are easy to begin with. If you are in a hot climate you might plant lettuces in the shadier spots, in a cooler climate you might choose to put them in full sun.

Location, location, location!

Best bet? Ask around and find a local gardener, preferably an organic gardener (but don’t be too fussy at first) … start somewhere and move ahead as you are able.

Thank you Chris and Bill for your input. I started reading some of the links and found a tutorial, but I must say…I’m gonna need the book! I think it might wind up on my xmas wish list. As for location, I live near Sacramento, CA, so the summers are dry, and the temps get into the 90′s. We’ll have heat waves into the one hundreds. Our back yard has spots that get lots of sun, so I’m eyeing those areas to start. Talking to others in the area is a great suggestion, and will do so after I do a bit more research so I can ask intelligent questions. I’m looking at three areas in my back yard that would fit about a 2×3 feet bed each. I’d like to start with tomatoes, green beans, carrots, strawberries and lettuce. That might be a bit ambitious for a first go, so I’ll have to wait and see what makes sense.

The books are inexpensive because they have a .pdf download version of some of them (not every book though). Fortunately, the tutorial on the website gives you 1/2 of the “6 Steps” book — which is very generous of them. (They’re non-profit.)

I personally ordered the Library CD which has *every* book, even those not in .pdf format, for $70. Also ordered the Garden Wizard which is planning software for $13. Those are bargains.

You may find that tomatoes and green beans are good starter plants for brown thumbs like us (it’s my first time, too!). I’m only going to focus on tomatoes since they’re good cash crops and seem to be easy, according to what I’ve been reading. Start easy, get encouraged by what you find and then branch out into the harder stuff like lettuce, carrots and strawberries.

Oh, and do us a favor and track your hours+expenses, take pictures and give us your candid opinion so that the world can benefit. Do you have a blog? If not, you can set up a free one on BlogSpot

A blog, huh? I’ll think about that. It might be a good way for me to commit to this gardening project. I have a tendency to get really excited about a project and stop half way through. But I’ve been thinking about gardening for a couple of years (I even invested in an aerogarden this year…what a waste of money!). So, maybe I will. I’ll post back here if I decide to do that. Thanks again for all the support!

I have a very close friend in Sac … she lives near the Executive airport. In fact, I owe her a visit. Or two.

In the early spring, interplant your lettuce with something that can take more heat. Later on, as the lettuce goes to seed, cut it off at ground level and let the other plant have the room and provide some shade. (Let the soil keep the roots. If they grow back, good. If not, also good.)

On my blog I have pages devoted to slug control and raised bed gardening. You are welcome to browse them if you wish. I am working on two more planting guides which should be ready by Friday.

The blog is sort of sparse right now, but the plan is to flesh it out over the winter.

Tomatoes are easy; but plan on keeping the soil moist. A heavy mulch and frequent watering can make the difference between gorgeous fruits and ugly, split orbs with black on the blossom end.

TIP: when planting tomatoes or peppers, put a couple calcium tablets in the ground for each plant, too. The black spot is a calcium deficiency. Just get the cheapest variety of nutritional supplement at the cheapest local store. Don’t dissolve them first, let the soil moisture do that slowly … in tune with the plants’ need for it.

That’s a cool tip, Bill. Thanks. My library has the SQF Gardening book on the shelf, so I’ll pick it up today. If it looks like something I can follow, I’ll buy my own copy. I also subscribed to your blog – now I know what all those coffee grounds collectors use the grounds for!

I’ve been vegetable gardening for years and I love it. It gets cheaper each year because of the initial purchases that can be used again. And you discover all kinds of “cheap tricks” as you go along. I had a recipe for a make-your own organic fertilizer from the Territorial Seed catalog, which turned out to be even cheaper than those you could buy. I even found a feed store (in Burien, near Seattle), that had so many people buying ingredients for the same fertilizer that they just mixed a big barrel of it every week or so rather than measure out a little of this, a little of that. Similar recipes are on the web. I also got into composting worms. There were plans online for building the box, and there were many people, once I went looking, who would give me a handfull of red wiggler composting worms. Add some dirt, coffee grounds, maybe some shredded newspaper, and any vegetable peelings, wilted lettuce, overripe or bruised fruit (no rinds), cooked but uneaten veggies (wash off any butter) and the worms will go to town making very rich compost. In Seattle I could keep them outside as long as the box was against the house and insulated enough and I let the compost build up so they could stay warm. They worked all winter, although more slowly. Some people find ways to bring them into their garages and feed them to keep a population going. Even if you do this with just a handful or so, they reproduce quickly once the weather warms up and they get more food. More specifics online.

Another great organic fertilizer to use is a “green manure.” These are various kinds of fall and winter cover crops that you spread over the garden once all your vegetables are done for the year. In the spring, BEFORE IT GOES TO SEED, till this crop right into the soil at least 3-4 weeks before planting. The decomposing cover crop adds a lot of nutrients to the soil. Since vegetables are very demanding of nutrients, you may find the second year’s yeild disappointing if you don’t add more fertilizer. But work a green manure into each fall/winter season and you won’t need to buy another bag of fertilizer. You can compare prices and coverages at several sites online.

Then there are chickens, if you want to go REALLY organic. My family got two hens one year – with a little “coop”. Someone was always around during the day (pretty much a prerequisite unless you build a very protective compound) so we didn’t need much more protection than we had around the coop. The chickens ate all the bugs, fertilized the ground and delivered fresh eggs to boot. You won’t need a rooster – there are “lay pellets” to make the hens produce an (infertile) egg. You’ll just never have chicks! One warning, don’t assume that the lack of a rooster will mean crow-less mornings. One of the hens will become dominant and take over the job! Our neighbors decided the chicken experiment would not have a second season.

Lol! I’ve had hens for 3 years, no one crows. And all eggs are infertile, until you get a rooster to come visit. Too funny. Anyways, didn’t read all the comments, but an idea to save your money would be to invest in heirloom seeds the next time you purchase them. Then, you can save your own seeds for your next years planting. Haven’t personally tried it yet, that’s my project for this year. Good luck, and good site.

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